Pay Our Salary Arrears, Training Fund Resident Doctors Tell FG

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has asked the Federal Government to expedite action on payment of omitted 2020 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF) to its members before the 2021 fiscal year runs out in March 2022.

The association made the call Sunday in a communiqué issued after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja. 

The communiqué was signed by the association’s president, Dr Dare Godiya Ishaya; the Secretary General, Dr Suleiman Abiodun Isma’il and the Publicity and Social Secretary, Dr Yusuf Alfa .

The association said while the government had paid the withheld August and September 2021 salaries to her members, and the 2021 MRTF, some members were yet to receive payment of their omitted 2020 MRTF.

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“It is also our desire that the payment of the 2022 MRTF be concluded before the March/April/May 2022 post-graduate examinations to enable the judicious use of these funds by our members,” the association said. 

NARD called on the government, the Nigerian Governor Forum, stakeholders and well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the governors of Abia, Imo, Ondo and Ekiti states to urgently pay arrears of salaries and allowances owed her members in the state tertiary health institutions, adding that it has become inhuman and embarrassing. 

The association also called on the federal government to take steps towards curtailing medical brain drain. 

It lamented the acute manpower shortage in most tertiary health institutions as a result of the ongoing massive medical brain drain and the attendant burnout effects on her members. 

Daily Trust